Pulled a body panel!

I never did post anything about the exhaust manifolds.  I've cleaned them up some, I think I've located a car wash I can degrease them at so I can paint them.  

More clean-up inside where I pulled out the rear seat belt.  It's not as bad as I thought it was.  Then again, I don't really know what I'm doing so maybe it IS as bad as I thought it was, or worse, and I'm just ignorant to the horror.  I'm tempted to start wire-brushing away flaked paint and rust, but I'm not cutting that out and fabbing new pieces anytime soon, so I let it go.  Once the motor and tranny are out I want to wheel it out of the garage and really clean it out.

I don't know what the body panels are named, I'm sure I could learn with a proper service manual.  Anyway, I got the first body panel off today, the one that goes from fender to fender on the front top there.  Took out the headlight mounts to get it out... they're pretty dirty and rusty.  I wish I had a blasting cabinet... and nice air compressor, 60-gallon tank, etc....

Passenger-side with the stuff gone.  I want to get the fenders off to fix and clean up/repair everything underneath... and make it easier working on the frame and all of the suspension components.

I can just cut those rusted parts out and weld in patches, right?  Right.  :-)

The removed piece that I don't know the name of.  There's a nice furry surface of rust inside there.

My shelves of parts and baggies.  The rest are in the trunk.

I still can't figure out how to disconnect the shift linkage.  Of course, I also haven't researched it, I just lie there on the cold floor and look at it, maybe cleaning it up a bit with shop rags.  I loosened the transmission mount bolt, also, so that's ready to pull out once I figure out how to disconnect the shift linkage.  The tranny fluid cooler lines are still there, too, I'm going to replace them though so I'll just cut those out when I'm ready to pull it.  Also have to disconnect the speedometer sensor/sending unit, but that's a no-brainer.  (famous last words?)  

The passenger-side floor plan should just be replaced, also.  I can see a constellation of little pinpricks of light coming through the floor on that side.  Might as well make the floor more solid.  While I'm at it, the passenger-side rear floor is dented up pretty good, not sure what happened there.  It looks like the car was dropped on a boulder or something.  

Slow boat to somewhere

Yeah, I wouldn't say I've been 'busy' with the car... but I lean on it and look at the engine every once in a while.  ;-)

Seriously, though, I drained the transmission fluid and cleaned up the trans cover.  I know it doesn't sound like much but it looks better with that clean pan under there.  I had hopes of painting it to practice my painting 'skills' but didn't.  I've been trying to locate a car wash with the manual wands and whatnot that I can take parts to for degreasing rather than in my sink, haven't found one yet.  I have a line on one, though.  If I want to paint the transmission after I have it out and cleaned up, we'll see about it then.

I kind of attacked the exhaust manifolds with a wire attachment on the drill, ostensibly as prep to paint it silver.  I read further and I'm going to hold off until I can degrease them in a car wash instead.  No rush.

I finally caved and just cut the wire to the oil pressure sending unit so I could have the wiring harness totally disconnected from the engine.  Then I found where the last wire was going, it was connected to the transmission, so I got that disconnected too, wiring harness totally off.

I ground out some rust on the interior, pulled off another seat belt and attacked the foam holding one of the rear seat belts in place... turns out that's about all that was holding it in, it's totally rusted solid and just came out.  I'll need to weld in a nut to the sheet metal I fabricate for those corners in order to have something to bolt the rear seat belts into... and added the rear belts to the 'need new parts' list.

I was going to disconnect the shift linkage from the tranny but... I can't see how to do it.  Where it looks like it would be convenient to disconnect it, there are no bolts or nuts or screws, it's just what looks like a sealed ball joint kinda thing.  So I laid on my back, cigar smoke wafting through the rusted hole in the floor, gazing at the shift linkage and then up through the floor at the underside of the dashboard.

Back topside, I took the ignition coil and choke off of the intake manifold.  The coil has a crack on it... another 'replace this' item.  The choke has a bimetallic coil in it that's all rusted.  I wonder how much that costs... if it's like ten bucks, I'll replace it.

Now that so much is taken off, I look at it and think 'what was there?'  I have great faith that when I'm putting everything back together (hopefully next spring), I'll either remember or figure out what order to go in... ;-)

Whoa, updates? Not much... :-(

Been doing a little bit here and there.  I've been attacking some rusty surfaces with wire attachments to my drill and it's been generally good.  Cleaned up around some rusty areas of the trunk lid, hit the lock bolts with liquid wrench (be great to be able to close the trunk and open it without a screwdriver).  Started de-rusting the driver's front wheelwell... not pretty obviously... and while I was at it, hit the frame rail some more.  While I was under there, I decided it was time to drain the tranny fluid in prep for pulling the transmission.  For the record, one of my least favorite vehicular maintenance tasks is draining transmission fluid... so many bolts, so messy.  I think I got it all caught in my pan, though.  While that was draining I started hitting the interior rust with the drill/brush.  It's funny, I'd thought it was moderately non-filthy in there... now there's all kinds more dust/dirt flying around.  Good times.

Had to come back and herd kids but still, good to get some stuff done.

I also finally acquired the correct bolts to pull the motor and bolt it up to the engine stand.  I first went to O'Reilly with a sample bolt from the bell housing (which matches the bolt holes in the heads which is where I plan to attach the chain for pulling the motor) and according to the bolt/nut size display, said it was a metric bolt... which surprised me.  I bought two (they didn't have any big enough for mounting on the engine stand), went home... they don't fit in the holes.  Last week I was at Ace Hardware and did the same thing... Ace's display said it was a standard fit bolt.  On faith, I got four long ones for the engine stand and two short for the engine lift... they fit perfectly.  So... kudos to Ace.  I still need a chain and the engine lift, obviously.  Maybe in January.

Also hoping the welding kit I'm looking at stays on sale at Northern Tool into February when I should have money for it.  Not holding my breath.  ;-)

oops

I've been, I think, fairly careful in the disassembly up to this point.  I realized something the other day, though.  I was relaxing with my Haynes manual, reviewing the 'pull the transmission' section when I realized that 'remove all of the bolts from the bell housing' came AFTER 'support the engine with a block of wood under the oil pan and use a chain to support the transmission.'  So... I need to do those things, I think.  Of course, rather than do them, I did a few other things this weekend.  Got another seat belt disconnected, swept out the interior a little more... then I did something really fun... I jacked up the rear end and took out the driveshaft.  It's surprisingly easy to take out... just four little bolts off of the U-joint at the rear and and then pull it out of the transmission.

Of course... I was supposed to mark the orientation of the driveshaft on the pinion so I could put it back the same way... <sigh>

Also came across this interesting bit... I have no instructions that say 'drain the transmission fluid' before pulling the driveshaft... however:

So that's great.  So much for my 'clean' garage floor.  Of course, the entire transmission is coated with coil and crud, so when it comes out that'll be nice anyway.  What I'm wondering if this means that the rear seal on the transmission needs to be replaced... of course if I'm going to have it out anyway, I should replace that seal as a matter of course while I'm at it.  Hoping to pull the engine this weekend, maybe I'll take the tranny out before that, we'll see how busy this week gets.

Here's the rear end.  I'm hoping the 'after' pictures look better... ;-)

back in the saddle?

Life's been pretty busy/crazy the past couple of months, not much time for the car.  Been doing little things here and there and just got some good time in the past couple of weeks.

I got a little hand-brush to clean the dust and everything out from the inside rather than using my broom.  I wouldn't say it's 'clean' but it's certainly 'less filthy'.  Took out some more seatbelts, too.

Hopefully before it snows this year, I'll roll it out of the garage one last time and wash the inside with soap and water, some scrubbing, etc.

I got both of the engine mounts unbolted so it's ready to pull the engine out there anyway.  Yes, it's filthy.  In some places, inches of crusted dirt and oil deposits.

Passenger's side engine mount.  Up and to the right you see the fuel pump mount (had to remove it in order to get my wrench on the engine mount) and the water pump.  The K-member here is where I scraped a lot of crusty dirt out.  Lovely.

Took the torque converter cover off to reveal the flywheel and whatnot, got the four bolts out connecting the flywheel to the torque converter.  I'm impressed by how clean it looks in there.  Actually, now that I look at it, I see a fair amount of dirt in there... hmm.  Anyway, it's exciting to be looking 'into the guts' of the drivetrain.

Disconnected the throttle cable and the transmission kickdown lever.

 Looking up at the bottom of the engine and the bell housing.  Note the rusty hole to the left where there SHOULD be a freeze plug.  Same issue on the other side.  This was why my brother stopped driving the car... I can only imagine what the waterfall of coolant was like.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what all of this stuff looks like once it's clean.

I know I'm not doing anything with the frame right now until I can afford some things (like... frame rails and a welding setup), but I wanted this reference shot of the shift linkage mounted on the frame rail.  Looks like I might need some new bolts...

 Looking at the front of the engine.  The bottom pulley there is on the crankshaft, it was very exciting to me to turn that in order to rotate the engine to get the flywheel bolts off of the torque converter.  It turned pretty easy, so that's a good sign, I think.  Also, that pulley was so packed full of dirt, I couldn't even see the bolt in there.  I took a few minutes to chisel out the crud with my screwdriver.

So this is the front of the left-hand cylinder head.  That shiny bolt hole is where the negative battery cable attached... I'm thinking of putting a new bolt in there for attaching the chain to pull the engine out.  I can't see any better place to bolt in and I think it'll be strong enough... right?

My twisted pile of filthy seat belts.  I should have labeled them, it's going to be fun figuring out what goes where, I know.  Oh, well.

So this is the torque converter plate cover... I don't know why there's a little 'window' on the bottom of it, because considering airflow and whatnot, I would think that would just let flying rocks, gravel and small animals just get scooped up into the bellhousing.  I don't think I'll be putting this one back in, I'll get an 'aftermarket' with no 'window' in it.

The plan as of now is to keep cleaning and whatnot and Mark is going to help me pull the engine on Oct 29th.  With the engine out, I'll clean out the engine bay and want to pull out the tranny and driveshaft so it's as light as possible to roll out of the garage and do one last hose/clean before winter.  Then I'll break down and clean the engine and all.  I'd like to start 'work' on the trunk lid too, kind of to practice sanding down to a good surface and whatnot.  I'll probably start my welding/patching practice on the trunk lid, too... but I really doubt I'll be buying anything like a welding set until after the holidays are done... (February).  Until then, I'll keep cleaning and disassembling.  Plenty of that to keep me busy right now.

I would like to try to bend the roof supports back up, though... some lumber and a hydraulic jack... I may try that one of these days when I'm bored.  :-)

Labor Day labors

Made some good progress this weekend.  Mark loaned me his sawzall and I picked up some new wrenches, a screwdriver and drill attachments which I put to good work.

First order of business was to see if the screwdriver would get the trunk open.  No dice... so I sprayed about half a can of liquid wrench into the key hole... waited a day and the screwdriver popped it right open.  BOOYAH!  There was much rejoicing.  Then I took the trunk lid off.  There's some rust damage around the corners of it that I'll need to address before final paint, but that's a ways down the road.  It's structurally fine and ready to just be cleaned up for now and then stored.

Sawzall time... with proper eye protection, I cut away the exhaust pipe so I was able to pull out the exhaust manifolds.

With the manifolds and exhaust pipe out of the way, it was easy to pull the starter... and with it the positive battery cable.  Here they are sitting in the newly-opened trunk alongside the screwdriver that got the trunk open.

Meanwhile in the trunk... here's the passenger's side by the wheel well.  My brother had repaired this with a bondo-ish compound along with the structural foam so I'll get to scrape and pull all of that out of there before I do the metal repair over there.

On the driver's side, there was no repair work done... plus it's more rusted out anyway.  Lovely.  

Some shot of the engine bay with the exhaust out.  

Some more stuff done this weekend:

Swept out the trunk, cleaned a lot out of the trunk lid weatherstripping area (sitting under a willow tree for a decade or so will accumulate a good amount of... 'stuff'...)

Removed the bellhousing bolts (four of them, right?) They weren't very tight... I don't know if that should worry me.  I was thinking all I have to disconnect now was the motor mounts and I'm good to pull the engine, but then I remembered the flywheel/torque converter bolts... oops.  I need to take the flywheel cover off, there's a little door in it right in the front which is odd to me because that's like a perfect scoop to pick up gravel while you drive down the road, I would think.  I'll post a picture when I take one.  Plan to get a replacement cover that doesn't have the window eventually...

Speaking of the transmission, it occurred to me that maybe the reason the car doesn't seem to go into gear is because the shift mechanism levers are mounted to my disintegrated frame rail at one point so maybe the shifting isn't pushing the lever at the tranny all the way.  It would be nice to not have to have the transmission repaired or replaced.  I'll check another time... once the engine's out, I want to pull the transmission and driveshaft and take them to a coin-op car wash to degrease the hell out of them.  The trans in particular is coated with oil and dirt (thank you, rear main seal leak...)

Removed the fuel filter and the line from the fuel pump to the carb (used my new wrenches).

Removed the mounting dish things that hold the driver's side headlights. I need them out so I can get to the bolts holding the platform that the dishes mount on so I can get to the bolts that hold the fender on.  Ugh... hip bone's connected to the leg bone...

Tried to cut off a bolt holding some more metal in place, but I had settled for a grinding disk rather than a real cutting disk because I couldn't find the right attachment at Menards.... it didn't work so well.  The grinding disk did work well to grind down the tabs and rivets that held the trim in place, though... I ground most of those down on the driver's side.

Used a nylon spinning brush drill attachment to attack a lot of the rust on the driver's side, sprayed some rust converter on the quarter and b-pillar sections just to put the brakes on the rusting.  I need to get a circular sander and 80-grit pads for when I really want to go to town on that area, but that's probably not going to happen until after I get the frame sorted out.

27 August 2011

So... quick and easy I got the driver's seatbelt totally out (one of those bolts was a real sticker...) and got the exhaust manifolds all unbolted and ready to come off (soon as I cut out the exhaust pipe.  Did some more disassembly and labeling on the wiring harness, took the horn out.  That was the easy stuff....

Jacked up the front end from under the k-member mount on the driver's side and heard this awful crunching sound.  I wound up putting blocks under the center of the k-member to support the front of the car and as a result I could really see how the k-member is really only attached to the car by 3 bolts, not 4...

Jacked up and blocked...

 Manifolds disconnected... didn't break anything! 

 Wiring harness action.  Think this is the positive battery cable lead. 

 Shot of how the k-member is totally loose here, the part of the k-member bolted to the frame rail is totally rusted out.  It's not nearly this bad on the other side, but I can tell the metal of the k-member is compromised.  Need a new one or a donor.  

Another ugly spot... where the front frame rail (driver's) meets the torsion bar crossmember.  Problem: where do I support the car while I'm replacing this stuff?  I suppose I can support from the frame rail while replacing the torsion crossmember and then support from the crossmember while doing the frame rail.  

Here's the passenger side of the same connection... so that's how it's supposed to look!!!  

So... phasing again.  Most important is to get the body structurally solid, which means replacing the front frame rail, torsion bar mount and the rear frame rail all on the left side.  To do that, I'll be pulling the engine and transmission... well, mostly everything to get the weight down.  I'll leave the rear axle and all on while I'm working on the front, though.  I think I'll shoot to do the torsion bar crossmember first and all of the supporting steel in the rocker area, then while the car is supported from there, I'll do the front frame rail.  Nice project for the winter, right?